Greetings,
eco-friendly viewers,
and welcome to
Good People, Good Works
on Supreme Master
Television.
This week’s episode
features Helga Ahmad,
the chairperson of
a non-profit,
nongovernmental
organization called
the Initiative for
Rural and Sustainable
Development
which is based in
Pakistan’s national
capital of Islamabad.

One of the Initiative’s
projects is the Funkor
Child Art Center which
promotes awareness of
environmental protection,
preservation of
traditional culture,
human rights,
moral values and peace
through art appreciation
and book reading.

Ms. Ahmad is
a nationally recognized
environmentalist
who in 2007 received
the prestigious Fatima
Jinnah Gold Medal
from Pakistan’s Ministry
of Women’s Affairs
for her outstanding
contributions to society.
Her profile also appeared
in “Green Pioneers,”
a book published by
the United Nations
Development Programme
that showcases those
making significant
contributions to field
of environmental
conservation in Pakistan.

Helga Ahmad was
born and grew up
in Bavaria, Germany.
She later came to
Pakistan which she has
now made home for
more than half a century.
Her husband is
Jamil Ahmad who
previously worked as
a Pakistani civil servant
in the nation’s frontier
areas and as a minister
in Pakistan’s embassy
in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Due to her husband’s
position, she was able to
travel throughout
Pakistan and she became
involved in promoting
sustainable development
and environmental
awareness
after witnessing
the challenges faced by
the underprivileged
segments of society.

So , after my husband
retired from government
service, I was active
with the National Craft
Council of Pakistan,
and we were trying to
promote traditional crafts.
And being personally
interested in it, I was
sent to different areas
to see how
one could improve.
So near Multan
there is an area called
Crorebhaka and
Crorebhaka has beautiful
block-printed work and
tie-and-dye work, done by
the local women and men.

Now the dyes which
these women were using
were highly toxic.
And these women,
the moment they were
finished with the dyes,
they used to throw it
in the courtyard.
And the children
used to play.
And naturally
I was trying to teach
the women that, look,
this is very unhealthy,
and your children become
very ill because of it.

Then I was able to also
teach them how to use
a local tree which is
called the Neem tree,
which is now
an international tree.
It's called Neem, the
global tree of the future.
And the people didn't
even know that the
Neem tree is very good
for any type of
skin problem.
So I taught them how to
use the Neem tree,
but simultaneously I also
tried to look around
for funding to teach
the women how to use
the old technique of
vegetable dyeing.
So we got an expert from
Bangladesh, and we tried
our level best to have
a workshop for 10 days
in that area.

The use of agro-chemicals
endangers the health of
rural residents, and
this is another area of
concern for Ms. Ahmad.

Cotton is grown and
cotton has enormous,
high levels of
pesticide sprays.
And because of the
pesticide, the cottonwood,
which is used by
the rural women as fuel,
I took some cottonwood
with me to the
Pakistan Environmental
Protection Agency
laboratory, and
we discovered that
the cottonwood still has
a lot of pesticide.

So the woman who is
cooking the food,
and for instance,
the pregnant girl is told
by her mother-in-law,
"You sit comfortably and
you do the cooking."
Now in the process of it,
this girl, when she cooks
the food, she also inhales
the fumes of
the cottonwood.
So she herself, as well as
the unborn child, are
automatically weakened.

When Helga Ahmad
was a child in Bavaria,
she and her family would
forage in the forest
for edible wild berries
and plants because of
serious food shortages
during wartime.
Ms. Ahmad is thus
familiar with many
medicinal plants and herbs.
One of her success
stories is how she helped
show some of
the rural residents of the
Gilgit-Baltistan region
in northern Pakistan
how the sea-buckthorn
can better their health
and prevent landslides.

And on one visit, that was
about 15 years ago,
up into the Karakoram,
I discovered
the sea-buckthorn.
Now sea-buckthorn is
a plant which we
as children in Bavaria,
our mothers used to send
us out to pick the berries
from the sea-buckthorn
shrubs.
And our mothers used to
make cough-syrups
because during the war
and even after the war,
we lived off natural herbs.
We lived off mushrooms,
and the food which
the forest gave us.

I mean in Bavaria our
forests are unbelievable.
I still dream about them.
So our mothers used to
send us out to collect
different plants
for herbal medicines
and herbal teas
and the rest of it;
it was an amazing time
thanks to the forests
which we had.

So when I saw this berry
up there,
I asked these people,
"What are you doing
with it?"
And they said, "Oh,
this is for the goats and
the birds
who are living off it."
I said, "What do you mean?
This is a gift of God,
who has given it
to the mountain people
so that during the winter,
all their illnesses
are removed."

Several years later
when she was in
northern Pakistan again,
she ran into
Mr. Mohammad Shafa
who had served as
her translator six years
earlier during her visit
to the area.
He had taken her advice
to heart and showed
Ms. Ahmad photos
of his family collecting
sea-buckthorn berries.

I was so excited by it.
Not only did he do
whatever I had told
the people to do, but he
also made his son-in-law,
who was a welder, weld
together a fruit juicer,
a fruit press.
Now I had told those
people that if you extract
the juice from the berries,
you have to have at least
two spoons of the juice
per day
during the winter months.
And it will keep
the coughs and colds away.

Now this person,
he collected
one kilogram of berries,
extracted the juice, and
measured it spoon-wise.
So he knew exactly
how many berries
he had to collect because
he had eight children
and there was husband
and wife, so there were
20 spoonfuls per day.
So he collected that many
berries for three months
during the winter.

Then he extracted
the juice and he was
drying the rest of
the residue and he
selected some of the husk
and put it in his bread,
so that also became
extra nutrients, and then
the rest of it
he gave to his cow.
Well after the local people
up there discovered that
he's doing all those
things, and that
their health has improved,
suddenly the local people
also got interested in it.

Lack of clean
drinking water is another
long-term challenge
that the government of
Pakistan is confronting.
Ms. Ahmad is also
concerned about
this issue, and
she recommends
rain harvesting and water
recycling as measures to
enhance the sustainability
of the water supply.

In Libya,
if a house wants to get
a completion certificate,
the government officer
comes and looks
if there is a rainwater-
harvesting system
functioning in the house,
if there is a wastewater
recycling system
in the house, and then
the completion certificate
is given.
Now in Islamabad
we don't have any of this.

So since many, many years,
I have been writing
about it, I've been talking
on television about it,
and I've been going to
concerned government
officials also,
trying to tell them that
our water problem is
an artificial problem,
because Islamabad is
being built up
very aggressively,
and in olden days when
the rain fell, the ground
absorbed the rain.

Now on many occasions,
people are selling
organic vegetables.
Now if you have
contaminated water,
how is your vegetable
"organic?"
Because our water
has contamination,
our sewerage water,
we don't have a proper
sewerage system,
everything goes into
our rivers, right up
from the Karakorum,
right up from
the Hindu Kush,
everything goes into
the river system and
it is washed down,
and naturally
the soil absorbs it.

So when we talk about
"organic" you have to
have rainwater.
So anyone who actually
wants to grow organic
vegetables should also
be made to collect
the rainwater,
so that in the end
they can use rainwater
for the vegetables.
Even recycling of
wastewater, there are
so many techniques now
for recycling wastewater
and using it
for cultivation.

I think I remember
about 18 years ago,
we had Professor (Teruo)
Higa from Japan, who
had developed effective
micro-organisms that
feed on
all the contaminants.
And he introduced it
in Pakistan.
Recently I discovered
that the National
Agricultural Research
Council of Islamabad is
still producing it, so I got
some of this material.

Fortunately, the
government of Pakistan
is also highly supportive
of Helga Ahmad’s idea
about collecting
rainwater.

Now we have built-up areas,
we have road systems,
we have parking areas,
and the rain goes into
the storm drains,
and it gushes off
and it causes floods
in the low-lying areas.
So we should
do something about it.
Well, luckily last year,
Capital Development
(Authority) of Islamabad
got a new chairman who
was fully aware about
my perseverance
in rainwater harvesting.

So he invited me and
a committee was formed
about rainwater
harvesting.
So there were some
very committed people
working in that committee,
and in Islamabad now
there are three projects,
three areas where
rainwater has been
collected.
And amazingly, during
those last heavy rains,
in certain areas the water
table has risen by 30 feet
just because of these
rainwater-harvesting
initiatives.

To close, Ms. Ahmad has
a final message for us all.

And I think for nature
to heal, we should be
using our religious groups
to preach it, because
the Qur'an teaches it.
The Qur'an teaches us
that God has given us
this Earth in our hands,
and we have to look after
it, and we have to,
for our future generation.
Now that is in the Qur'an.

We salute you,
Ms. Helga Ahmad and
those part of the Initiative
for Rural and Sustainable
Development
for your deep concern
about the future of
the people and beautiful
natural environment
of Pakistan, and
for your tireless efforts
to create a green, healthy
way of life
for generations to come.
May Heaven bless
Pakistan with ever
brighter days ahead.

Wise viewers, thank you
for your company
on today’s program.
May all inhabitants of
planet Earth be immersed
in the healing, protective
power of Mother Nature.

Wise viewers, thank you
for your company
on today’s program.
May all inhabitants of
planet Earth be immersed
in the healing, protective
power of Mother Nature.